Idealized architecture + public implications

The Pruitt Igoe Myth and the Death of Modernism The Pruitt-Igoe Myth explores the Pruitt – Igoe project and the reasons behind the failure of this project. The images of this mega project’s towers crumbling to the ground clearly indicate that something had gone wrong. This has widely been blamed on the architects who were involved in the project. Yamaki, an architect at Hellmuth Yumaki and Leinweber comes out as the main suspect for the failure of the project (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth). The film brings out footages, historical reanalysis and raw data on the project. A clear insight into the film however reveals that the entire project failure cannot be blamed on architectural design. On the contrary, the project failed due to institutional racism and the post war population changes that occurred in the industrial cities.
Despite the various claims that have been put forward as the causes of the project failure in this, it is revealed that architects face very big challenge when it come to designing major public buildings. The first problem is normally the size of the project. The Pruitt Igoe project was oversized consisting of 33 buildings on 57 acres of land (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth). This was a major challenge for the project architects. The second problem is the difficultly in understanding the clients that they are serving and their needs due to the high number of users of the buildings. The film reveals that had the architects understood the clients that they were serving, the failure could not have occurred. The final problem is the constant design changes. The project that was initially designed by Yamasaki was a less massive development project . However, various aspects of the complex were value engineered hence making it unresponsive to the needs of the clients.
Work Cited
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. Dir. Chad Freidrichs. Unicorn Stencil, 2011. Film.